Fatima Nafees, the mother of missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmad, on Wednesday took part in a sit-in protest in front of the CBI headquarters here, demanding that the central investigation agency find her son. The family members of Najeeb, along with the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), had organised the protest after the Delhi High Court yesterday pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for not making any headway in the case of the student’s disappearance.

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“Find my son, I don’t want any reasons,” Nafees told reporters and wondered why the government was “so scared” to take action in the case. The court had reprimanded the CBI, saying it had placed on record the same status report submitted earlier, and added that the case had not been transferred to the central probe agency “for fun”.

The protesters also threatened to block all the gates of the CBI office and hold such demonstrations every day till the whereabouts of Najeeb were known. “We were happy when the case was transferred to the CBI. But shockingly, the same report was submitted yesterday. The CBI is making a mockery of the system. We will be protesting again and again till Najeeb is found,” said Khalid Saifi, a family friend.

Some protesters demanded that they be allowed to probe the case if the investigating agencies were “scared of something”. “Let us do the investigation if you are not able to do so or are scared of something. We will find Najeeb,” a JNU student said in his speech.

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Some told PTI that they still could not understand why the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the BJP, “targeted” a fresher like Najeeb. JNUSU president Mohit Kumar Pandey accused the CBI of “not being independent” and “receiving orders from the home minister”.

“We are only asking the CBI to carry out its institutional responsibilities and nothing else,” he said. Former JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid asked the probe agency to look into “all the aspects” of the case.

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“The CBI should show some spine and probe all the aspects of the case. Besides, those who had alleged that Najeeb had joined a terror outfit should be arrested,” she said. Later, a five-member delegation, including Najeeb’s mother, was called inside the CBI office for talks.

Umar Khalid, a member of the Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students’ Organisation of the JNU, alleged that the entire government machinery was being “used for political reasons”. “It is really scary that right from a small office in a university to the NIA and CBI are being used for political reasons. If this goes on, we have no idea where we are headed,” he said.

Syed Azharuddin, the national secretary of the Students Islamic Organisation of India, alleged that there were “attempts to suppress the issues related to the minority community”. “Najeeb’s case and the talks of withdrawing the minority status of the Jamia Millia Islamia university indicate attempts to suppress the (minority) community. The CBI should act independently,” he said.